In your opinion, and I've been asking this, uh, for the last couple of days, did they turn a corner in that game against the Bears, or do we just have to wait and see if they're able to continue that with the game on Sunday night against Dallas?

I think they've turned a corner.

I- I really think they have.

I think you look at the massive swing in pressure numbers from the first three weeks of the season, you know.

And I wrote about this today for SB Nation.

You can check that out.

But one of the most pressured quarterbacks by percentage of pressures where, you know, on dropbacks where he was pr- pressured, to one of the least these past couple of weeks.

How much belief do you have in the Vikings at this point as an undefeated team?

Yeah.

They're still on the sideline alongside him.

That brain drain that sometimes weakens other programs, right? You think about the Saban coaching tree, and, I mean, Kirby Smart's coaching tree.

You know, you've got Lanning now in Oregon, for example.

Like you lose the coaches around you, and sometimes that can be a problem.

He hasn't had that yet 'cause he's been loyal.

He's rewarded them.

Yeah.

You know what I mean? That's the only thing that I saw that was a little bit better.

Yeah, and I, I think that's a huge point because you look at, you know, whatever charting service you use, whether you do it yourself.

You know, I, I saw there was only one quarterback pressured on fewer percentage of his dropbacks last week than Jordan Love, and that was Tyler Huntley, who came in for Lamar Jackson, and, you know, they only threw it a couple of times when he was in the game.

I thought that offensive line performed well.

It could still take another step.

Like you said, with Zeitler coming in and they work him into the fold.

You know, the one thing that sort of still gives me pause about this offense and about Jordan Love in particular is that interception.

How much better have the Bears gotten under Ben Johnson in just a simple year and four games?

We'll fix it.

And our head coach was just like, he threw it.

I don't care.

He threw it.

Meaning I made the decision to throw the football.

And that's that Travis Hunter play, right? Like you are in the red zone.

Yes, it's 14-3.

Like, what did he do that has rubbed this staff so wrong? And what do you think they have to do if they're going to get him going?

And what do you see as you sit here and watch the Packers, you look at this just broken down offense, what do you see that you could say would be fixable at this point?

I mean, I think you have seen in the past couple of days what the issue is, and it's no surprise to anybody listening, and it's no surprise to you and I, it's the offensive line.

They're trying to bring in bodies.

They're trying to bring in people to sort of figure this out.

But, you know, Friday I put up a piece at SB Nation where I talked about all these stats that highlight the problems.

I mean, Love has no time to throw.

He has no time in the pocket.

He's, he's turning it over at a, at a miraculous rate at this point.

[laughs] You're so kind.

And we also talked about this-- We, we, we talked about this last week, right? When there were the struggles of protecting Jordan Love in week one against the Minnesota Vikings, you could've looked at it and said, "Yes, it's Brian Flores and that Viking defense," but there are other things that you're gonna have to figure out.

These teams are gonna try to copy that.

Teams are gonna try to mimic what the Vikings did in week one.

You could go a couple different ways.

You could go quick game and try to get the ball out, three-step drop, screens, things like that, and you could go max protect.

Well, I saw a lot of both from the Packers on Sunday against the Jets, and it's not like they worked a ton.

Mm-hmm.

I mean, that was impressive.

It was very impressive.

Um, and I think it's something that certainly has the rest of the league, the rest of the division on notice.

The defense is going to be an issue, I think, for them.

I'm reminded of a couple of years ago when Carr was still in New Orleans.

The Saints came out the first two weeks and put up an ungodly amount of numbers.

And I remember writing, "Hey, this is gonna be a team to be reckoned with.

Yep

First of all, what did you think of the NFC and the AFC Championship weekend?

Well, I mean, there are a lot of people that look at this past weekend and look at that NFC Championship game between the Seahawks and Rams and wonder, hey, was that the real Super Bowl? I mean, those Two teams, those two NFC West rivals, played three fantastic games this year.

You know, obviously the first one was a little bit strange because you had the multi-interception game from Sam Donald, but it still comes down to a last-second field goal try.

You have that wild overtime game in the regular season, their second meeting, and then just a fantastic NFC Championship game between two teams.

And I think either one of them would have been favored in the Super Bowl over New England.

Then you get that Denver-New England game, which was... football game played by two football teams but you have a backup quarterback and jared stidham that you know absent the big throw where they sort of caught christian gonzalez looking to the backfield on play action on third and ten which is bewildering but okay we'll move on from there They didn't really do too much.

You have a Patriots offense that also didn't do too much.

I just sit here and go, I think the Seahawks are going to win this game.

Have we changed the era in the NFL where it's a resultory in a business faster than it is longevity-wise and owners just aren't willing to wait as long anymore?

I think so especially when like you put we've got more than half of the league now that has changed you know head coaching gigs over the past like you said two years that is a massive amount of turnover in a short period of time and I think it speaks to not just in sports but like the greater overall movement look our attention spans are shorter we expect results faster whether it's on a football field whether it's in other aspects of life I mean People aren't really patient these days because life moves pretty fast.

And so you're seeing that play out now in the National Football League where you've got, you know, not just long tenured coaches like McDermott, Harbaugh, Tomlin, but coaches like Mike McDaniel, you know, coaches like Kevin Stefanski, coaches that haven't been there as long.

They're just not getting that long leash like we're used to seeing in years past and times past where, you know, longevity was a positive, where patience was a virtue in the National Football League, where you would give coaches time to implement their vision.

Now it's, look, where have you gone? That's the era of the National Football League that we are in right now.

And even some of these hires, you know, five-year contracts, you've already got people saying that they don't, most of these coaches will see those five years.

We don't know if they'll see even three years because they're You come in, it doesn't work.

But would you think that the team, whoever takes over either Buffalo or Baltimore, is probably the closest to automatically not only getting to the postseason but possibly winning a Super Bowl?

Who do you give the edge to? in that contest up in New

England? This might be the most fascinating game of the week, I think, because it may very well mirror what we saw between the Chargers and the Patriots because, look, that Houston defense, if you're a Patriots fan, you're not sleeping well this week because you saw what that Chargers defense did.

Now you get Hunter, you get Anderson.

That defense is ferocious at every single level defensively.

defensive front linebackers corners safeties they're physical they're hard-nosed petrie coming downhill run fits run in the alley that is a defense that will get after it and if the chargers defense was able to do what they were able to do now you're getting this use of defense which is better you're not sleeping easy as a patriots fan but what gives you some calm and some peace is What that Patriots defense did to the Chargers, yes, they're playing with two backup tackles, but you see how they were able to get after things, the beating that they put on Justin Herbert.

And then you look at Monday night and see what Pittsburgh's defense was able to do to Houston and to Stroud and forcing him into mistakes.

It might be another full defensive slugfest.

But what does he need to do to go to that level?

I got to ask you, how shocked were you that John Harbaugh is no longer?

You know, it's one of those moments where you know it broke through beyond the people like you and me that eat and breathe and sleep this stuff.

When I'm driving to the grocery store, and the first notification I get that this had happened was from my mom.

She texted me asking, hey, you know, was this a smart move? I mean, my mom's a huge football fan, you know.

She's part of the reason I even played this sport.

So, you know, and then I was just running some errands with her just a little while ago, and she's asking me if this was the right move.

So...

Give me your thoughts on the game coming up Saturday night down at Soldier Field between the Packers and the Bears.